But should Muslims, and so on be expected to assuage the baseless fears and prejudices of their fellow American or Australian citizens?
I've recently been looking through Adolph Reed's essay collection Class Notes, and came across this paragraph on black anti-Semitism:
"Black anti-Semitism's specific resonance stems from its man-bites-dog quality. Black Americans are associated in the public realm with opposition to racial prejudice, so the appearance of bigotry among them seems newsworthy. But that newsworthiness also depends on a particular kind of racial stereotyping, the notion that, on some level, all black people think with one mind. Ralph Ellison complained most eloquently about white Americans' general refusal to recognize black individuality. Charles Rangel put the problem succinctly: When approached to declare himself on Khalid Muhammad, he complained that he was tired of being called on to denounce people he'd never even heard of. Any black anti-Semite is seen not as an individual but as a barometer of the black collective mind; belief in Blackantisemitism [Reed's label for the notion of a unique and particularly virulent black form of anti-Semitism], therefore, is itself a form of racialist thinking." (pp. 34-5)
Looking at this in the context of the present debate, I think it might be more useful to suggest that such thinking is racialist in effect but not in origin, rooted instead in the human tendency to imagine any opposing group as having a collective mind. A third example of this tendency might be the perceived need for the American Tea Party movement to do more to denounce racism among its supporters, though of course one shouldn't necessarily push a comparison among religious, racial/ethnic, and political groups too far.
I worry that such calls for denunciation, whatever the intentions with which they're made, subtly insinuate that members of such groups can never do enough to "prove" that they're worthy of equality. There will always be something that they don't denounce, or don't denounce quickly enough or passionately enough. It's hard enough being responsible for our own opinions; can we really ask people to take on those of others who are vaguely comparable to them in some way?
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-09-30 04:36 pm (UTC)I've recently been looking through Adolph Reed's essay collection Class Notes, and came across this paragraph on black anti-Semitism:
"Black anti-Semitism's specific resonance stems from its man-bites-dog quality. Black Americans are associated in the public realm with opposition to racial prejudice, so the appearance of bigotry among them seems newsworthy. But that newsworthiness also depends on a particular kind of racial stereotyping, the notion that, on some level, all black people think with one mind. Ralph Ellison complained most eloquently about white Americans' general refusal to recognize black individuality. Charles Rangel put the problem succinctly: When approached to declare himself on Khalid Muhammad, he complained that he was tired of being called on to denounce people he'd never even heard of. Any black anti-Semite is seen not as an individual but as a barometer of the black collective mind; belief in Blackantisemitism [Reed's label for the notion of a unique and particularly virulent black form of anti-Semitism], therefore, is itself a form of racialist thinking." (pp. 34-5)
Looking at this in the context of the present debate, I think it might be more useful to suggest that such thinking is racialist in effect but not in origin, rooted instead in the human tendency to imagine any opposing group as having a collective mind. A third example of this tendency might be the perceived need for the American Tea Party movement to do more to denounce racism among its supporters, though of course one shouldn't necessarily push a comparison among religious, racial/ethnic, and political groups too far.
I worry that such calls for denunciation, whatever the intentions with which they're made, subtly insinuate that members of such groups can never do enough to "prove" that they're worthy of equality. There will always be something that they don't denounce, or don't denounce quickly enough or passionately enough. It's hard enough being responsible for our own opinions; can we really ask people to take on those of others who are vaguely comparable to them in some way?